If you’re like a lot of employers these days, you’d rather leave a job vacant than hire the wrong person for the job. So if you’ve gone to the trouble to hire the right people, the last thing you want is to lose them.
A recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 81% of employees are satisfied with their jobs, down five points from 2009, when they were basically happy just to have a job.
The interesting thing is that although employees remain overwhelmingly satisfied with their jobs, there isn’t any one particular thing that makes them want to stay. In fact, there are five things, and they’re all favored by roughly 60% of employees. They are:
- Opportunities to use their skills and abilities (63%)
- Job security (61%)
- Compensation (60%)
- Communications between staff and management (57%)
- Relationship with immediate supervisor (54%)
As the economy improves and opportunities increase, more workers will likely test the waters and begin sending out resumes. You might not be able to compete on compensation, for example, but if you keep your employees feeling challenged and secure, they might just stick around.
Adapted from Opportunities and Challenges Fuel Job Satisfaction at BaselineMag.com.